Lol, the team that made costly errors in an early first round exit getting embarrassed by the Flyers...then lost Jordan Staal and added little to boost their offense while keeping the dreadful Paul Martin?

Yeah, cup champs right there this year. If they let us play Vokoun and Fleury at the same time.

DocEmrick wrote:Lol, the team that made costly errors in an early first round exit getting embarrassed by the Flyers...then lost Jordan Staal and added little to boost their offense while keeping the dreadful Paul Martin?

Yeah, cup champs right there this year. If they let us play Vokoun and Fleury at the same time.

This is unsurprising. Who else? The Pens were 1 point out of first place in the NHL last year with Sid playing 22 games. Drew a horrible matchup. Lost. These odds indicate we have an 11% chance of winning the Stanley Cup. Is it that crazy any more?

Short season benefits the Penguins more than most teams. The offensive talent will quickly get into the groove before the goalies and defense. It will cut down on the amount of games Flower has to play which can only be seen as a positive. The only drawback will be the Defense's groove. With Michalek gone, and no real replacement has been determined we could see the same blue line mistakes we saw late. Or, the converse occurs with the defense having a stronger focus on just playing defense the Pens could easily be the most well rounded team in hockey.

the notion that vegas odds are based to try to even bets out across the board is false. vegas always takes a position, it almost never ever happens that the bets are even across the board on both sides. there are weeks in the nfl that regardless of what the number is over 70% of the bets taken are on one team - like the packers game yesterday. the odds and lines move not by the amount of money on one side orrrr the other in most cases, but because of sharp money.

the pens were favorites in the first odds released and those were avaialble as soon as the kings raised the cup and have been available even through the lockout you've always been able to bet on it. in many books after the rangers got nash their odds improved to equal of the pens.

If the pens played the upcoming season 8 times, do you think they would win the cup once? With Sid, Geno and Letang, I think at least one out of 8 times we would get hot and win it.

To put it another way, what team would you rank above the Pens? LA got hot at the right time, but struggled all season and barely got in. New Jersey lost ground in the off season. Phoenix doesn't have the pieces to go all the way. The Rangers added Nash without losing much, so maybe them, but they still don't have Malkin or Crosby. The Pens may not be the best team, but they have the highest ceiling with those guys on the roster.

knives of ice wrote:the notion that vegas odds are based to try to even bets out across the board is false. vegas always takes a position, it almost never ever happens that the bets are even across the board on both sides. there are weeks in the nfl that regardless of what the number is over 70% of the bets taken are on one team - like the packers game yesterday. the odds and lines move not by the amount of money on one side orrrr the other in most cases, but because of sharp money.

the pens were favorites in the first odds released and those were avaialble as soon as the kings raised the cup and have been available even through the lockout you've always been able to bet on it. in many books after the rangers got nash their odds improved to equal of the pens.

they set lines to make a profit, the lines move based on how the public is betting (this is to even out the betting more). I am not going to get into a semantics argument but the lines are set based on how the public likes to bet combined with how the odds makershave the best chance of making money.

The penguins being favorites means nothing more than the odds makers thinking that the public betting combined with the lines will make them money.

The pointspread is not the handicapper’s predicted margin-of-victory, but it is in fact the handicapper’s prediction of what number will be required to split the wagering evenly on both teams. Understanding that little tid-bit is the first step towards taking advantage of the numbers.

DesertPenguin wrote:If the pens played the upcoming season 8 times, do you think they would win the cup once? With Sid, Geno and Letang, I think at least one out of 8 times we would get hot and win it.

To put it another way, what team would you rank above the Pens? LA got hot at the right time, but struggled all season and barely got in. New Jersey lost ground in the off season. Phoenix doesn't have the pieces to go all the way. The Rangers added Nash without losing much, so maybe them, but they still don't have Malkin or Crosby. The Pens may not be the best team, but they have the highest ceiling with those guys on the roster.